By JOSIE CLARKE consumer reporter
The average Kiwi can no longer afford a humble lamb chop.
Lamb and steak are dropping off the menu in New Zealand homes as the price of meat soars.
Red meat now costs up to 30 per cent more, wholesale, than it did a year ago. The falling dollar has forced local wholesalers to match high export prices.
But supermarkets said yesterday that they had absorbed the increases, and customers could still buy their meat for about 10 per cent more than at this time last year.
Shoulder lamb chops are fetching up to $3 each in Auckland, with premium cuts costing up to $15.99 a kilo.
One retailer has resorted to selling Australian lamb. "Mad Butcher" Peter Leitch said the chain imported the meat two weeks ago for less than it could buy the equivalent in New Zealand.
"We may do it again. There's no question that when the meat gets dearer, people stop buying it."
On average, New Zealanders are each eating 2kg of red meat less than last year, figures compiled by the Meat and Wool Economic Service suggest.
Beef consumption is down by 3kg a head.
Rob Thompson, who owns Herne Bay Fresh Meats, said wholesale prices were the highest he had paid in seven years.
Sales of fillet steak, a traditional indicator of how much consumers were spending on meat, were down. A kilogram now sold for $39.95, up $13 from a year ago.
The Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau general manager, Rod Slater, said competition between local retailers had stopped prices from going as high as they could have.
"We are a commodity, at the end of the day. The low dollar, coupled with the US taking a lot of beef, has put pressure on demand in New Zealand, and supply and demand rules."
Almost three-quarters of New Zealand's beef is exported to the United States.
But Mr Slater predicted New Zealanders would adjust to the higher prices.
Red meat was still relatively cheap compared with other countries and New Zealanders had always been big meat eaters.
"People might look to alternative protein sources such as chicken, but in the end, New Zealanders enjoy their red meat and they tend to drift back."
Kiwi carnivores finding meat a tougher option
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